Does Green Tea Offer The Prescription For Beating Cancer?
Posted by admin on December 29th, 2009 filed in Uncategorized
With early detection, cancer is no longer an automatic death sentence. However, an initial diagnosis still brings with it a number of questions: What is the most effective course of treatment? Are typical approaches best? Or are non-ancient therapies preferable—significantly if the cancer does not appear to respond to chemotherapy and radiation.
In recent years, a nice deal of emphasis has been placed on unconventional therapies for cancer. For example, in a piece of writing within the Canadian Medical Association Journal, Elizabeth Kaegi of the Task Force on Alternative Therapies of the Canadian Breast Cancer Analysis Initiative discussed the fact that cancer patients are attempting a number of intriguing therapies, including Essiac, Iscador, hydrazine sulfate, vitamins A,C, and E, and 714-X. However perhaps one among the most standard therapies that has been tried is green tea. In fact, visit your native convenience store and you’ll notice jug when jug of green tea in various flavors. Still, you’ll be wondering what makes green tea therefore special—and if it really will help to combat cancer.
Green Tea—The Basics
Green tea is produced by steaming or frying the leaves of the shrub known as Camellia sinensis. The leaves, that are not fermented, are then dried. For 5,000 years, families in China and Japan have hailed green tea as a valuable stimulant and a good remedy for stomach ailments. You’ll be able to even purchase green tea in capsule type now, though the particular medicinal advantages from such capsules have however to be established.
Dried tea leaves are way a lot of complex than you may think. Specifically, they are made from phytochemicals, plant alkaloids, proteins, carbohydrates, fiber, phenolic acids, and minerals. In fact, the precise composition of the leaves varies, relying on when the leaves are harvested and how they’re processed. You ought to also remember of the very fact {that the} composition of green tea varies from that of black tea, since black tea has fewer polyphenols as a result of of the fermentation process.
Side Effects
Green tea will contain anywhere from 10 to 80 milligrams of caffeine—the particular amount depends on how it has been created and stored. Since caffeine may be a known stimulant, green tea may lead to a racing heart rate and insomnia. Consequently, heart patients, pregnant ladies, and nursing mothers ought to ideally drink not more than 2 cups of green tea a day.
Cancer Prevention
Various scientific studies have explored the utilization of green tea as a cancer preventative. In line with Kaegi, digestive cancers seem to be notably responsive to green tea. After all, such tea appears to somewhat decrease the chance of experiencing cancer of the digestive tract. Given the very fact that such conclusions are the result of a number of epidemiological studies, it seems that the concept that green tea can forestall cancer has some merit.
News from the Lab
However what concerning treating cancer? Can green tea be as effective in treatment as it is in prevention? There was some limited lab work investigating the chance that green tea will be used as an alternate type of cancer treatment. However, at this time, there have solely been some animal studies and no human studies. The results of those studies are, at this time, inconclusive.
Nevertheless, it ought to be noted that one study showed that, if extracts of green tea are applied to mouse skin, it appears to stop the development of skin cancer when known carcinogens have been applied to the skin. Other research indicates that green tea will stop the expansion of tumors or decrease the number of tumors in animals that have been exposed to cancer-inflicting agents.
In some animals, green tea and tea extracts prevented cancer cells from metastasizing. There are indications that green tea extracts will stop chromosomal abnormalities that can lead to cancer, with reduce the scale of breast and prostate tumors.
The Magic of EGCG
Green tea contains an antioxidant known as epigallocatechin gallate, or EGCG. This substance seems to inhibit enzymes that are accountable for cell replication, stop the adhesion of cells, and disrupt the communication pathways that enable cell division to occur. However, EGCG appears to be most critically vital as an antioxidant.
Final Conclusions
Researchers believe that there is evidence to suggest that green tea can be used to treat cancer. However, scientists add that extra research is completely essential so as to see the full range of treatment that green tea may provide. For instance, researchers should confirm which cancers are possibly to be abated through the use of green tea or green tea extracts. Since there is additionally evidence to indicate that green tea can forestall cancer also, drinking green tea is not solely safe—it’s also highly suggested by some medical experts. Therefore, green tea may not simply be a thirst-quencher—it could conjointly be a key ingredient of a healthy diet.
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